Honey(4)
Damien looks at his shoes, clean white trainers, and mutters something else.
“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
“Women of color.”
“So it’s interesting, is it not, that a theory comes along—intersectionality—that says—hey, maybe we can think about how identity is having an impact—and we want to shut it down as being too, as you say, ‘PC.’?”
Damien removes his glasses. The students around are looking at him.
Yrsa turns back to her slides.
“As I was saying—” and the lecture rolls on—the outsider within, performativity, decolonization—and her mind drifts to what she’s going to have for lunch.
After a final flurry of slides and poor (nervous) answers to simple questions, she ties the lecture up. Her brain, body, mouth working on autopilot. As she goes to shut down the projector the volume of chatter in the hall increases. A young woman wearing bright green Docs and loose curls sheepishly smiles at her. Yrsa sends a friendly nod back.
“Excuse me, can I talk to you?” It’s Damien.
“You may.”
“I didn’t like how you spoke to me in the lecture.” The boy looks both affronted and righteous.
“I spoke to you the same way I spoke to everyone else.” Yrsa continues to pack away her notes and laptop.
“No, you embarrassed me.”
What Yrsa would like to say is “please, kindly, fuck off,” but instead she says, “I’m sorry if that’s how you felt. Us lecturers can be a little harsher than your schoolteachers, there’s nothing to feel embarrassed about.”
He removes his glasses and puts them back on. “Okay, thank you for apologizing.”
Yrsa doesn’t remember apologizing, but she smiles, because students like to make complaints. She keeps her smile until he walks away.
And she waits. The lecture hall clears like a bath draining water; she watches the students go. Something about the smell of wood and suddenly empty air that suspends her.
It’s the waiting: on something, to rush in.
* * *
This is her favorite place for a cigarette. On the river down from Queen’s College but not quite crossing into King’s. She likes to look at the cows as they munch on grass, and in on students as they do whatever it is students do in their rooms. The trees are ready and waiting for their leaves, the river flat. She has to sit hidden by the bushes and branches as the porters threatened to fine her once. The ground is sort of damp.
Smoking is a habit she hasn’t knocked from her teenage years. Although, she’s not the type to kick a habit. She’s coming to the end of the cigarette, which is a problem: Sitting here she doesn’t have to go and do anything she’s meant to do today. She tries to draw out the final breaths.
It must have happened gradually, subtly, her life becoming this tedious; but recently the monotony has taken on its own sort of Technicolor.
Two students are sitting in the courtyard across the water. They’re leaned back on a bench, one waving a book about and arguing for something enthusiastically. This university is a place so trapped in time that it’s become a cliché of itself. Most people are unhappy here.
She hears a rustle behind her and puts the cigarette out. The porters don’t mess around, but when she looks back it’s just a squirrel.
The squirrel tilts its head and looks at her like it wants to have some kind of moment. Yrsa sits still, allows it to come closer, then throws a stone. It scampers and she laughs.
* * *
She’s decided to take the rest of the day for herself. Sure she’s got a whole load of work to do but why do it? She’s bought sushi and a Diet Coke; later she’ll have a bath. Rounding the corner of St. Andrew’s Street, Wasabi bag in hand, she decides that she will have a park lunch—en plein air!
God, she really needs to kick Ethan’s habit of translating banal things into French. Waiting at the traffic lights to cross into Christ’s Pieces she checks her phone. Nina’s texted, asking if Yrsa can come over. She doesn’t know that she’s ever been to Nina’s room, but texts back to say that she could be at her college in a couple of minutes. She hopes that whatever’s up with her friend isn’t going to stop her eating her sushi.
Crossing the street and heading away from the park she navigates a dim group of tourists before arriving at Christ’s engraved entrance. Founded in 1437, it’s a college of geranium borders and Brazilian-waxed lawns.
“We’re not open to visitors.” The porter shouts as she enters, pointing at the sign that reads “Closed to Visitors.”
“I study here.” Yrsa doesn’t stop to speak to him, which makes him jump out from behind his desk.
“I’m going to need to see your Cam card.”
She then only stops when she’s an awkward distance from him, beyond the sign and its barrier.
“Of course.” She smiles, sweetly, removing her ID and holding it out to him. She won’t come toward him—that’s the game.
The porter squints at her. He’s got bushy sideburns that look glued on. He takes a step toward her, then back again. “Fine, but next time you need to check in with us.”
“Absolutely I will,” she says in a singsong voice.